Our issue with streaming is so much greater than just whether an organization like A2IM can double the payout from Spotify from $0.004 per stream to $0.008 per stream. The issue is more structural cause we’re f***ed at either payout rate. | | | | Mary J. Blige performing at the Academy Awards, March 4, 2018.
(Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “Our issue with streaming is so much greater than just whether an organization like A2IM can double the payout from Spotify from $0.004 per stream to $0.008 per stream. The issue is more structural cause we’re f***ed at either payout rate.”
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| | rantnrave:// Streaming is good for everybody. Governments gonna work it out. Stop worrying. If you build it online, they will come. Things are a little messy right now but be patient. Future. Now. Music. Modernization. Act. This, more or less, is the official mainstream conversation on the economics of streaming, give or take your complaints about YOUTUBE, and those who disagree are generally referred to as gadflies or some variation thereof. Because they are obviously wrong. But what if they aren’t? MARC RIBOT, veteran shredder of jazz guitars and proud union musician, shreds some of the positive thinking about the MUSIC MODERNIZATION ACT and the streaming economy in this Monday morning must-read for the TRICHORDIST. Going significantly deeper than the typical "my label's on SPOTIFY and all I got was this lousy 10 cents" complaint, Ribot details both sides of the ledger for an indie jazz musician like himself, how the disappearing CD and download market is affecting his wallet and how the entry of large indies like ECM into the streaming world is accelerating that disappearance. And then he suggests concrete legislative solutions. And he is angry. In 3,000-ish words very much worth your while, he explains why... Two other jazzy must-reads for a Monday morning: PIOTR ORLOV, for ROLLING STONE, on jazz's new epicenter in SOUTH LONDON, where players like SHABAKA HUTCHINGS, MOSES BOYD, THEON CROSS and NUBYA GARCIA are redefining what jazz is and could be. The scene may be on the verge of an American breakthrough. Writing with the same energy and deep knowledge with which they play, Orlov traces the scene's roots back to '80s acid jazz and explains what the buzz is about... And BEN RATLIFF ponders the meaning of virtuosity in a lengthy VQR essay that touches on FRANZ LISZT, THELONIOUS MONK, PRINCE and more, including, for example, ERIC CLAPTON, who was once described as "a virtuoso of tedium." Is virtuosity a thing to aspire to? A thing to be skeptical of? A thing to move past? A thing someone can even grasp as it passes through the fingers of so many different players in different mediums in different times? Fantastic music writing, and thinking... ALEXANDRE DESPLAT's ACADEMY AWARD-winning score for THE SHAPE OF WATER evokes the sound of water by using 12 flutes, including alto and bass flutes, and no other woodwinds. No oboes, no clarinets, no bassoons. "It's all very soft, like if you were underwater," he says. Also, totally coincidentally, he's a flutist. Also, duh, it works. Thrilled he won. Would have been equally thrilled if JONNY GREENWOOD won... Also at the DOLBY THEATER Sunday night, COMMON and ANDRA DAY stood up for immigrants, women, PARKLAND high school students, peace and love; MOSES SUMNEY, ST. VINCENT and CHRIS THILE joined SUFJAN STEVENS, unannounced; and if the ceremony did nothing more, musically speaking, than give America a chance to meet the great Mexican pop singer NATALIA LAFOURCADE, that alone would have made it a good night. VARIETY's CHRIS WILLMAN on an inclusionary Original Song race... EGOT X 2... TUMA BASA heading to YOUTUBE... Thoughts, prayers and big beautiful beats to RICK ROSS and KID MILLIONS... RIP PATRICK DOYLE, HARVEY SCHMIDT, EOM, RONNIE PROPHET and JAMES "NICK" NIXON. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| London artists like Shabaka Hutchings and Nubya Garcia are leading a new wave of British jazz. Can they break through with American audiences? | | |
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 | VQR |
| What do you do about virtuosity? Do you worship it? Reject it? Negotiate another kind of response? Can you convert it to something you can use? Where should you put it? | | |
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 | The Trichordist |
| The Music Modernization Act will hopefully expand collection and distribution of songwriter royalties for interactive streaming. But even at the most optimistic outcome, streaming is simply not viable for the majority of indie recording musicians and labels. And it never will be viable, as long as internet giants like Google/YouTube can profit from copyright infringement with impunity. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| In an age of problematic artists, this Brooklyn rapper redefines the conversation | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| Best Buy cuts compact discs. As with 78 rpm records and 8-track tapes before them, does the news further the compact disc’s march toward redundancy? Are CDs now on their way to becoming a niche product in the same manner as the cassette? | | |
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 | Geeks & Beats |
| A rapper admits he rushed to publish a video called “School Shooter” to “capitalize” on the national conversation after the Parkland shooting. Is this a threat, protected speech or just really poor taste? | | |
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 | Esquire |
| For f***'s sake. There's no Led Zeppelin reunion in the works. Instead, he's always looking forward. | | |
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 | Thrillist |
| Beneath the hit-filled playlists of Spotify and YouTube is an entire shadow world of babified rock, pop, hip-hop, EDM, country -- really, most any genre of music -- swimming concurrently to adult-person music. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| Since releasing her conversation-shifting album 'A Seat at the Table' in 2016, Solange has sent similar waves through the art world, staging works in spaces like the Guggenheim and earning Harvard’s Artist of the Year distinction. Now, she’s working on new songs -- and shrugging off music-industry conventions: “I’m not interested in entertainment at this moment.” | | |
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 | Pigeons & Planes |
| Their vocal resemblance to John Lennon and Paul McCartney is uncanny, but Blac Rabbit's original music is the real story. | | |
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 | NME |
| Dan Reynolds is the singer and emotional wellspring of Imagine Dragons, the 12 million-selling phenomenon who merge pop, R&B, EDM and country into their monumentally popular, vacuum-sealed, training-bra rock tunes. But you don't have to dig too deep into Reynolds' lyrics to uncover torment. | | |
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 | The Boston Globe |
| They were known as ‘Levinites’ — the young musical acolytes who bent to the will of James Levine in all things, back when the conductor was the brightest emerging star in conducting. From the outside, it seemed a charmed circle; the reality inside was otherwise: dark, sexually charged, and often demeaning. | | |
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 | Variety |
| It hadn't been much commented on prior to the Oscars Sunday night, but there was really no category that better represented the inclusion, diversity, and marginalized communities that the Academy wanted to hold up than the Best Original Song category. | | |
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 | The Bay Bridged |
| To the men who don’t seem to understand that women can know music -- please, stop. I know you think you’re being “helpful." Well, actually...you're not. | | |
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| Billboard |
| For a service like Spotify that has unrivaled data and algorithmic sophistication, leaning heavily on flagship, top-down properties and quasi-celebrity figures like Tuma Basa might be sending a mixed message about the service's growth narrative, and perhaps even treading too far into Apple Music's turf. | | |
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 | NPR Music |
| Not exactly known for its transparency, the soon-to-be-public streaming giant offered an unprecedented look at its internal landscape this week. | | |
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 | GQ |
| A frank conversation with the king of sad stuff. | | |
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 | Stereogum |
| The chorus of “If It Makes You Happy” was designed to make you want to participate; it’s a life-affirming piece of pop, something you can put on at the end of a long s***ty day and feel renewed. | | |
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 | Fact Magazine |
| From live spaces to the art collectives making things happen. | | |
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| NPR Music |
| Watch the 77-year-old jazz-funk icon perform "Everybody Loves The Sunshine" (and more) at the Tiny Desk. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | Alexandre Desplat/London Symphony Orchestra |
| | From "The Shape of Water." |
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| © Copyright 2018, The REDEF Group |
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